Victim's father held in slayings of 2 Bolivar women

Daughter's romantic relationship with girlfriend eyed as motive

Updated 11:30 pm, Thursday, March 13, 2014

Something undeniably violent happened inside the small green-and-white house in the South Acres area where relatives of Britney Cosby and law enforcement authorities found evidence of a bloodbath - notably in her father's bedroom.

Officials with a search warrant retrieved carpet, upholstery and cleaning supplies from inside the home, but one item was laid out for all to see on Thursday afternoon: A red-stained area rug folded up in the driveway.

Just hours after James Larry Cosby Jr. was arrested Thursday and charged with two counts of tampering with evidence in the deaths of his daughter and her girlfriend, Crystal Jackson, shocked family members emerged from the home to face the news media.

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The mystery began early March 7 on the Bolivar Peninsula when a beer delivery driver discovered two bodies behind a convenience store. An investigation by the Galveston County Sheriff's Office led to Britney Cosby's 46-year-old father and the 1,200-square-foot Houston home they shared with her 90-year-old great-grandmother and Jackson.

The women, both 24, began dating in 2012, according to their friend, Tramecia Terrell.

Family members offered conflicting accounts of the father's relationship with his daughter.

Britney Cosby's mother, Loranda Remer, said he had difficulty accepting the two women's romantic relationship.

"He would throw it in her face," Remer said, adding that her daughter quoted Larry Cosby as saying, "Don't throw that gay (expletive) around in this house."

Reached by phone, Annie Cosby said her grandson enjoyed a good relationship with his daughter.

"I never saw them having a misunderstanding or anything like that," she said, adding that Larry Cosby had no problem with his daughter's sexual orientation.

She also lavished praise on her great-granddaughter.

"She took good care of me," said Annie Cosby, who uses a wheelchair. "She paid my bills, would do my grocery shopping, cooking - all of that. I don't know what I'm going to do now."

At a vigil Wednesday night in Houston, Larry Cosby, a longshoreman, said that he would miss his daughter's "smile, her bubbliness, her spontaneity."

"She was like my twin. She looked like me. She acted like me. Her features were like mine. Her hands were like mine," he said. "Everything about her was just like me. When she was born, my mama said, 'Boy, it looked like you had that child.' "

Father's fingerprint

But hours later on Thursday morning - wearing the same clothes from Wednesday's service - Larry Cosby voluntarily attended an interview with Galveston County investigators. He couldn't explain why his fingerprint was found at the Bolivar crime scene and was taken into custody, according to a criminal complaint. He remains in the Galveston County jail in lieu of $500,000 bail. The charges may be upgraded to capital murder, officials said.

Sheriff Henry Trochesset said Larry Cosby's statements to investigators as well as evidence in the home led to the arrest. The sheriff declined to elaborate on what was said or what evidence was found, but he acknowledged that the home appeared "to be a secondary crime scene."

The criminal complaint states that Cosby saw his daughter's body on March 6 and failed to report the corpse to authorities.

According to the affidavit, a window shutter was missing from the Cosby home and a blood-stained one matching others on the house was discovered where the bodies were dumped. An investigator found a fingerprint matching Larry Cosby's on paper affixed to the lone shutter.

Autopsies revealed that Jackson died from a single gunshot to the head and that Britney Cosby succumbed to blows to her head, but also had a broken neck, the affidavit said. The women also appeared to have been killed somewhere other than where their bodies were discovered.

Victim's car missing

That location is believed to be the southeast Houston residence in the 4100 block of Howcher that generations of the Cosby family have called home for nearly six decades. Larry Cosby had returned to the house late last year after a two-year prison stint for failing to comply as a sex offender. He was convicted two decades ago of the sexual assault of a 22-year-old woman.

On Thursday afternoon, community activist Quanell X accompanied Cosby family members to meet reporters. As he spoke, Britney Cosby's grandmother, Patricia Nixon, began weeping, then wilted into the shoulder of the young man who was holding her up.

Quanell denied that Larry Cosby's relationship with Britney Cosby or Jackson was troubled, but acknowledged that the father did not approve of his daughter's homosexuality.

"There was no indication whatsoever that he and his daughter had any problems with one another, any history of conflicts, any history of them fighting," he said, adding that the father enjoyed spending time near water and "was very familiar with the Galveston area."

Relatives later walked across the street and unrolled the forest green area rug, which was discolored on its lightest patches.

Officials continue to search for Britney Cosby's 2006 Kia Sorrento, which was observed on security video entering Galveston Ferry Landing at 9:18 p.m. on March 6 and exiting on the Port Bolivar side about 20 minutes later, according to the affidavit.

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